Sigh.... I think I'll let someone like Richard Stallman take the
point position after this as I don't have any intention of getting
into the whole extended legal rigamarole surrounding why these little
"protective clauses" can also do more harm than good, but I will make
a few small points:
Piero is being naive if he thinks that restricting redistribution on
*any* form of free software or doc is something that everyone can buy
into with warm, fuzzy "oh, this is just for everyone's own good" sort
of attitude. For archivists, and I'm not even talking strictly WC
here, it's a major pain in the ass once the sheer number of documents
or programs exceeds a certain size (which has already happened). You
ever hear of something called a "patent search"? Assuming that you
want one done with any competency, it's a hairy and evil process
involving a lot of time, money and legal help, and you can still get
your ass sued off by the one person they missed.
Restrictive copyrights add a lot of strain to the process of UPDATING
that very same Internet Info CDROM that Piero is so happy to have
up-to-date. I see no evidence that WC is going to throw in the towel
anytime soon, but if the trend towards requiring signed permission for
every little item coming across the net continues, I can certainly
tell you that they and a number of other folks in similar situations
will! Who needs the grief?
The BSD copyright was adopted for a REASON, Piero, and that's so that
people from all walks of life can use our code. Some people have sent
me private email saying "So, how would you feel if Microsoft used your
code and sold it, huh?" to which I respond "Fine. Let them do whatever
they like!"
Look, I don't give a flying &*$#%^@! WHO uses my code because I don't
do this to stroke my ego or rake in the dough, I do it because I enjoy
doing it and I want as many people to benefit from it as possible. I
find it more than a little sad that something like a FAQ, which Piero
claims people write to "help people", would be any more restricted in
a way almost guaranteed to get it into _fewer_ people's hands.
As a case in point, when I called Walnut Creek CDROM out of the blue
almost 2 years ago to ask them if they'd care to do a FreeBSD CDROM at
no charge to them, I didn't ask them because I was secretly hoping
they would send me money, or give me a job, or directly aid the
project in any way. I simply wanted another convenient distribution
medium available that wouldn't make MY life any more complicated (as
it would had I tried to do it myself).
What subsequently happened wildly exceeded my expectations, but if WC
decided tomorrow that they just wanted to go back to doing the CDs and
provide no other support, I'd still be happy. I'd still be getting
what I originally wanted, which was for people to have access to my
stuff, and I think I can argue convincingly that the BSD-style
copyrights which allow unlimited *re*distribution of the stuff we put
up on the net is the right way to go about it. It's not just a matter
of "unrestricted atruism" as Eric summarized it, it's a matter of
trying to set up the kind of framework (and, dare I say it, world)
that I see as the least restrictive all around.
Our government places enough restrictions on us without me or the
FreeBSD group running around slapping handcuffs on people who's
coloring we don't like. Call protection of "your work" whatever you
like - once you impose legal sanctions on certain kinds of use, you
are putting up barbed wire fencing and that's a fact. Any pretense of
this being an acceptable middle-ground is a farce, and for which the
current scheme of software patents is only the most extreme example.
Jordan
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